LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


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LINCOLN 

AND    THE 

NEW  YORK   HERALD 

UNPUBLISHED    LETTERS   OF 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

FROM    THE    COLLECTION    OF 

JUDD     STEWART 


Privately  Printed 

PLAINFIELD,  NEW  JERSEY 

1907 


i* 


Copyright,     1907,    by 
THE    LINCOLN    FELLOWSHIP 


•-•• 

ft 


The  letters  reprinted  herein  are 
from  the  Gettysburg  Edition  of 
THE  COMPLETE  WORKS  OF  ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN  and  are  reproduced  through 
the  courtesy  of  the  Francis  D.  Tandy 
Company.  The  letters  given  in  fac 
simile^  which  perhaps  complete  all 
that  Lincoln  ever  wrote  upon  this 
incident,  have  never  heretofore  been 
published.  They  were  written  to 
George  G.  Fogg,  who  was  Secretary 
of  the  jirst  Republican  National 
Convention. 

In  order  that  this  incident  in  the 
Great  Martyr  s  career  may  be  pre 
sented  in  as  interesting  a  form  as 
possible,  the  Ambrotype  of  Lincoln 
[7] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

taken  August  I^th^  1860  (three 
days  before  his  letter  for  the  New 
York  Herald)  now  in  the  collection 
of  Major  W^illiam  H.  Lambert  of 
Philadelphia^  is  used  as  a  frontis 
piece. 

These  letters  of  Lincoln  telling  of 
his  boyhood^  of  his  parents  -  -  his 
father  in  particular  —  and  showing 
his  great  forbearance  under  a  false 
imputation ,  seem  to  justify  the  pub 
lication  of  them  as  a  separate  addi 
tion  to  the  great  number  of  volumes 
on  his  life  and  work. 

JUDD   STEWART. 

Plainfield,  Nov.  7, 


LETTERS  TO 
SAMUEL  HAYCRAFT 

(Private) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS, 

May  28,  1860. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Your  recent  letter,  without  date, 
is  received.  Also  the  copy  of  your 
speech  on  the  contemplated  Daniel 
Boone  Monument,  which  I  have  not 
yet  had  time  to  read.  In  the  main 
you  are  right  about  my  history.  My 
father  was  Thomas  Lincoln,  and 
Mrs.  Sally  Johnston  was  his  second 
wife.  You  are  mistaken  about  my 
mother.  Her  maiden  name  was 
Nancy  Hanks.  I  was  not  born  at 
Elizabethtown,  but  my  mother's 
[9] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

first  child,  a  daughter,  two  years 
older  than  myself,  and  now  long 
since  deceased,  was.  I  was  born 
February  12,  1 809,  near  where  Hog- 
ginsville  (Hodgensville)  now  is,  then 
in  Hardin  County.  I  do  not  think 
I  ever  saw  you,  though  I  very  well 
know  who  you  are— so  well  that  I 
recognized  your  handwriting,  on 
opening  your  letter,  before  I  saw  the 
signature.  My  recollection  is  that 
Ben  Helm  was  first  clerk,  that  you 
succeeded  him,  that  Jack  Thomas 
and  William  Farleigh  graduated  in 
the  same  office,  and  that  your  hand 
writings  were  all  very  similar.  Am 
I  right? 

My  father  has  been  dead  near  ten 
years;   but   my   step-mother,   (Mrs. 
Johnston,)  is  still  living. 
[10] 


LETTERS    TO    HAYCRAFT 

I   am   really   very    glad    of  your 
letter,  and   shall  be   pleased  to  re 
ceive  another  at  any  time. 
Yours  very  truly, 

A.    LINCOLN. 


(Private  ) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS, 

June  4,  1860. 

DEAR  SIR: 

Your  second  letter,  dated  May 
3ist,  is  received.  You  suggest  that 
a  visit  to  the  place  of  my  nativity 
might  be  pleasant  to  me.  Indeed 
it  would.  But  would  it  be  safe? 
Would  not  the  people  lynch  me? 

The  place  on  Knob  Creek,  men 
tioned  by  Mr.  Read,  I  remember 
very  well;  but  I  was  not  born  there. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

As  my  parents  have  told  me,  I  was 
born  on  Nolin,  very  much  nearer 
Hodgen's  Mill  than  the  Knob  Creek 
place  is.  My  earliest  recollection, 
however,  is  of  the  Knob  Creek 
place.  Like  you,  I  belonged  to  the 
Whig  party  from  its  origin  to  its 
close.  I  never  belonged  to  the 
American  party  organization;  nor 
ever  to  a  party  called  a  Union  party, 
though  I  hope  I  neither  am,  nor 
ever  have  been,  less  devoted  to  the 
Union  than  yourself  or  any  other 
patriotic  man. 

It  may  not  be  altogether  without 
interest  to  let  you  know  that  my 
wife  is  a  daughter  of  the  late  Rob 
ert  S.  Todd,  of  Lexington,  Ky., 
and  that  a  half-sister  of  hers  is  the 
wife  of  Ben  Hardin  Helm,  born  and 


LETTERS    TO    HAYCRAFT 

raised  at  your  town,  but  residing  at 
Louisville  now,  as  I  believe. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS, 

August  1 6,  1860. 
MY  DEAR  SIR: 

A  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Her  aid )  who  was  here  a 
week  ago,  writing  to  that  paper, 
represents  me  as  saying  I  had  been 
invited  to  visit  Kentucky,  but  that 
I  suspected  it  was  a  trap  to  inveigle 
me  into  Kentucky  in  order  to  do 
violence  to  me.  This  is  wholly  a 
mistake.  I  said  no  such  thing.  I 
do  not  remember,  but  possibly  I  did 
mention  my  correspondence  with 
[13] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

you.  But  very  certainly  I  was  not 
guilty  of  stating,  or  insinuating,  a 
suspicion  of  any  intended  violence, 
deception  or  other  wrong,  against 
me,  by  you  or  any  other  Kentuckian. 
Thinking  the  Herald  correspond 
ence  might  fall  under  your  eye,  I 
think  it  due  to  myself  to  enter  my 
protest  against  the  correctness  of  this 
part  of  it.  I  scarcely  think  the  cor 
respondent  was  malicious,  but  rather 
that  he  misunderstood  what  was  said. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.   LINCOLN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS, 

August  23,  1860. 

MY  DEAR  SIR: 

Yours  of  the  igth  just  received. 
I  now  fear  I  may  have  given  you 
[H] 


LETTERS    TO    HAYCRAFT 

some  uneasiness  by  my  last  letter. 
I  did  not  mean  to  intimate  that  I 
had,  to  any  extent,  been  involved 
or  embarrassed  by  you;  nor  yet  to 
draw  from  you  anything  to  relieve 
myself  from  difficulty.  My  only 
object  was  to  assure  you  that  I  had 
not,  as  represented  by  the  Herald 
correspondent,  charged  you  with  an 
attempt  to  inveigle  me  into  Ken 
tucky  to  do  me  violence.  I  believe 
no  such  thing  of  you  or  of  Ken- 
tuckians  generally;  and  I  dislike  to 
be  represented  to  them  as  slandering 
them  in  that  way. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


[15] 


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